Blue Moon
by xXWhiteSheepXx
Summary: What if Bella fell for Jacob the way he fell for her? Set immediately after Edward's departure in New Moon, Bella finds her close friendship with Jacob might lead to something deeper. Will Edward return and make amends to claim his true love?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Yes, I'm sure this idea has been beaten to death. This is simply a fun little project for me :) I will update as often as I can, but in honesty it may not be a set schedule. I'm shooting for at least once a week. Enjoy!**

 _It will be as if I'd never existed._

 _Had_ he truly existed? Any memory of him felt like a dream. A dream turned nightmare. I couldn't feel my legs. They wobbled beneath me like rotted logs. I found myself on the mossy floor of the forest, unsure if I'd fallen or just lain down. Musk and rot filled my nose as I lay on my side.

I'd never felt emptiness like this before. My stomach had disappeared. My hands were numb and there was a ringing in my ears. I sat up, afraid I might vomit. But heaving turned to hyperventilation. My throat was dry and wracking. I gripped the dirt and moss between my fingers, clenched it with all the strength my numb hands could muster. A twig splintered and jammed itself into my palm. The pain cut my heaving short. I sat dumbfounded, staring at the blood trickling down my wrist as if I'd never seen anything like it.

 _This is why,_ I thought, _I'm weak. I'm fragile. I don't belong in his world. I never did. I was just a pet._

I tossed the twig away in furious frustration, blood spattering along behind it. I watched it sparkle like a gruesome rainbow.

I sat for hours in the dirt, my back settled against the damp trunk of an ancient oak. Darkness fell around me. Insects chirped their nightly mating calls. I don't know why I stayed. Perhaps I still held hope he might come back, smiling that dazzling white smile, and then he'd pop me one on the shoulder and tell me he was just kidding. I knew it wouldn't happen. I was alone. I'd probably always feel that way.

A few hours past dark I decided I should probably head back before Charlie sent a search party. I had no idea what time it was. My stomach had appeared again, rumbling in protest of my having missed dinner, but any thought I had of food made it twist and churn.

Charlie had the porch light on. He practically came running out of the house when he saw me crossing the yard. One look at my muddy face and the expression it wore softened his angry one into concern.

My dad knew me well enough to know I wasn't a heart on my sleeve type of person. I don't walk around with a long face because my pencil broke or my mom moved off to Florida. I shut it in. I adapt. I take care of the people I love. But if there's one thing I don't do, it's mope.

"What did he do?" Charlie asked.

I didn't answer him. I didn't stop walking. I brushed past him into the house and up the stairs while he peppered me with concerned questions. He stopped talking when we reached the landing, but he still followed me like an anxious ghost to the door of my room. I entered and made to close the door, but he held a hand up to block it.

"Bells," he started, looking more uncomfortable by the second, "I've spent years on the force. Now this may be a small town, but I've seen things happen. Things that I pray every night won't happen to you or anyone I love. But even in this small town I've seen them, and that… that… _haunted_ … look you're wearing… it's the same one I've seen every time one of those things happens."

His voice seemed in and out to me, one second he sounded like Charlie, the next like the teacher from Charlie Brown. I stared at his hand, wishing he'd move it so I could close the door.

"Did he… did he hurt you?"

I raised my eyes to meet his for the first time. He made to touch my face, then thought better of it and pulled back.

"Yes." I said.

Charlie finally dropped his hand. I closed the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

I lay on my bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling with the light on. I could hear Charlie through the floor, shuffling around downstairs. He was talking, probably on the phone. His voice was muffled, angry. Soon his footsteps became more clear, sharper. He hesitated at my door, then pushed it open.

"Bella?" he asked.

Silence rang between us. I never realized how small this house felt before. He pulled up a chair and sat next to me. I wished he would go away.

"Bella, you need to tell me what happened. I called the Cullens' house, but there was no answer."

More silence. I knew I should answer him, but my throat didn't seem to want to work. I knew what he was thinking, that Edward had hurt me physically, maybe even forced himself on me. A mad laugh threatened in my chest at the thought of how much easier that would have been for him than Charlie could imagine.

The leaves in my hair and mud on my face and hands were definitely not helping Charlie's line of thought.

"I need to file a report-"

"No." My voice croaked, but the word came out firmly. I had startled him.

"Bella-"

"No," I said again, "He didn't hurt me."

"You just said-"

"Not like that."

"Bella, I don't understand." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Charlie was a hands-off type of dad. Sure, he did all the normal dad things, getting me a car, making sure I didn't starve to death, inviting me fishing. If Edward had hurt me the way he thought, he'd be out for blood. But emotions, especially goopy, teenage emotions, did not tickle him the way they would my mom.

The silence lengthened again, thick and suffocating. I knew then that he wanted to leave.

"If… if you want to… talk… come find me." he said awkwardly. He started to stand, hesitated, then grabbed the chair to replace it in the corner. I heard his awkward, lumbering gait head toward the door.

"Bella," he said, "I love you."

 _No one will ever love me._

He snapped the door shut behind him.

I stayed in bed all night, eyes open. I watched the sunrise reflect off the ceiling and realized I hadn't moved once at all. My body was tight, as if I'd run a mile without stretching first. I decided I should probably shower.

I swung myself out of bed and forced myself up. My arms and legs were empty straws threatening to crumple beneath me, but I somehow made it to the bathroom.

I didn't look at myself in the mirror. I feared to see that haunted look Charlie had spoken of. The soap stung the raw sore on my palm. It was just another reminder of weakness. Pathetic.

I returned from the bathroom to a peanut butter sandwich resting on a paper plate on my nightstand. There was no note. That was Charlie. Make a gesture but don't ham it up with sentiment. I imagined what my mother might have written had I still lived with her.

 _Cheer up! Plenty of fish in the sea! ~Mom_

I peeked between my curtains down to the driveway. The cruiser was gone. The house was silent and still. Lonely. And for the first time since I moved there, I wished it wasn't.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3

I didn't even think about school for about a week. Eventually, I decided I should go back- Charlie had been giving me a nervous side eye for at least three days. People stared but didn't ask many questions. I think I made up some story about being laid up with the flu. But the sudden conspicuous absence of the Cullens' brought about skepticism from most people.

I kept my grades up, but not for myself. I knew Charlie wanted me to get into a good college and maintaining my grades was a good way to keep conversation to a minimum at the house. Most days I would come home from school and head straight upstairs under the pretense of homework. Charlie didn't ask questions, I didn't offer explanations, and we lived in a moderate, tense sort of comfort for it.

Months passed and I thought of nothing but keeping routine, something to keep myself sane. I couldn't seem to get a handle on my emotions. I pined for company when Charlie was gone, but ticked down the seconds until he would leave. I didn't speak at school unless spoken to first. I took to having lunch at the vacated table the Cullens' used to occupy.

I seemed to be the only person in Forks mourning the Cullens' departure. Edward was right. It was as if none of them had ever existed. I had only a small crescent shaped scar on my hand to prove to myself I hadn't imagined all of last year. That much he couldn't take away from me. Well, that, and my own shattered will.

Seasons passed without notice. I ate without tasting, slept without rest. My eyes became bloodshot, purple bags puffing up beneath them. Fall came, a dry whisper amongst the trees. I kept routine. School, homework, dinner, sleep, repeat.

I started to think I might survive. My bright edge was dull, I started to feel like nothing would ever sharpen it again, but I could survive. It's what he wanted, right? My life, this stupid, boring routine. Maybe I wasn't made for his world. Maybe he just got bored. Maybe he realized I was more trouble than worth. I found myself appreciating the fallen leaves, though their crunch was held captive by the never ceasing rains. Then winter hit, and that's when the nightmares began.

I lie in the meadow, the dewy grass sparkling like diamonds around me. My arms are spread wide, my legs straight out. I watch the clouds pass by, fluffy, but for once not threatening rain. A breeze throws a sweet taste to my nose. I close my eyes and relish the scent.

Shadows cast over my closed eyes and I open them to see a pair of playful hands. They part and Edward's face appears between them, smiling. He leans down and kisses me, that sweet taste filling my soul, spilling over into reality. I close my eyes and lose myself in him. He twists around, his body on top of mine, pulling me closer, kissing me, his scent intoxicating, enveloping. His marble body pressed to mine, his hand is on my lower back, his other strokes my face.

I open my eyes. Edward is standing in the center of the clearing. The sky is dark, the grass black. He speaks. His voice whispers directly into my ear, though he's easily twenty feet away.

 _It will be as if I'd never existed._

He's gone, withering into the darkness like smoke. I try to run to him, but my arms and legs are shackled to the ground. I pull at my bindings to no avail. I'm screaming, the sound rising from my chest to burst from my protesting lips.

Laughter bounces from every tree, taunting. My wild eyes search and find him. The tracker. He's upon me in less than a second, grasping my tender throat in his hand. He runs his tongue over grinning teeth, wrenches my head to one side, and tears my throat out.

I woke myself screaming. Charlie barged into my room, wearing only pajama pants and brandishing his gun. It took him a moment to comprehend the scene: my face flushed and nervous, almost guilty, cold sweat gleaming on my forehead, pure panic in my eyes, but no visible intruder.

"Jesus, Bells, you nearly gave me a heart attack," he said finally, trying to force a laugh and failing.

I had to take a moment of my own just to appreciate him. I'd hardly spoken to Charlie in months (in fact, I mostly wished for his absence), but here he was ready to defend and rescue me from some unknown foe. Of course, had my brain not been on overdrive, I would have recognized him as shouldering the burden that is fatherhood, but I wanted to appreciate the moment anyway.

Silence lingered between us, as it seemed so prone to do lately.

"Nightmare. Sorry," I said finally.

He stood there for a moment longer, his arms hanging awkwardly by his sides.

"Get some rest, Bells," he said. He left quietly.

I didn't go back to sleep. The images from my dream flashed before my eyes every time I tried to close them: the hunter's hungry smile, his gleaming white teeth, the pain in my neck as fire swept from my throat down toward my heart.

But worst of all, Edward's face. But not just Edward's face. His smile, his cool lips, and his body on mine. Everything I had repressed and forced myself to believe I didn't miss had come rushing back in those few moments. _Moments that weren't even real,_ I thought bitterly to myself. How could he keep hurting me like this, when he was gone for good, so far away?

I had made so much progress. I had started sitting with my friends at lunch again, forcing laughs for their jokes. I had even made plans to go shopping with Jessica soon. Not that I really wanted to go shopping, but it was nice to see that ghost of a smile on Charlie's face when I told him.

The tracker was dead. Torn to pieces and burned. But Edward… he was out there somewhere. I didn't know what I was to him anymore. A pet? An experiment? A lover? But I knew what he was to me. He was my heart. And with him gone, a hole had opened in my chest. It surprised me to think that no one could see it. Like someone could simply reach through me to the other side. I was empty. I had been foolish to deny it.

I woke that Saturday to snowfall. The dregs of the nightmare muffled it's beauty. I'd suffered through it nearly every night since it had first come to me. It was a strange feeling, fearing sleep for the pain of the tracker's bite, yet yearning to see Edward as I remembered him.

I gazed out my bedroom window as the snow gathered on my truck, fat clumps of white flakes melting together into a pillow of fluff on the roof of the cab. The cruiser was gone; Charlie had mentioned the night before that he might take a trip to the reservation to visit Billy Black. The sun was shining happily outside, reflecting on the quiet serenity of it all. My heart ached with dread.

I had agreed to go shopping with Jessica in Port Angeles. At the time, it felt right to agree to it, something that was expected of me as a friend, especially after feigning that I'd shaken myself out of the funk I'd been drowning in, but that was before the nightmare. Now somehow, no amount of half-hearted nodding yes or no to the color of Jessica's potential new shoes or offering falsely positive opinions on a patterned purse would convince me I wouldn't rather be at home alone. I sighed heavily, maybe even a bit over-dramatically, and forced myself into the shower.

I dressed myself in an oversized grey sweatshirt and thick blue jeans. Charlie had picked up an obnoxiously bright yellow parka on sale over the summer. He'd left it on the hook by the front door and I wrapped myself gratefully in it after strapping into some brown and black all- weather boots. No matter how much Jessica might scoff, I intended to be warm. I set out to brave nature's cold white beast.

Jessica had plans with her family after shopping with me, so we'd agreed Friday afternoon to drive separately and meet at some boutique she'd been dying to shop at. She'd seemed skeptical at first about my truck's ability to deliver me safely, but eventually shrugged in a _whatever_ fashion and dropped the subject. I was grateful to her for that much. I needed the time alone to prepare myself.

The last time I'd been to Port Angeles was when Edward and I had our first date. It seemed centuries ago, in another life, yet I could recall the details as if it were only yesterday. Edward might have been determined to wipe himself out of my life, but he couldn't take my memories, and I held them selfishly to myself like a dragon guarding its treasure.

I turned onto the snowy highway and gingerly pushed my truck to fifty. Charlie had installed snow chains again and my truck stayed planted firm in its trajectory, even though the plows had only made a few passes so far and the gray sky seemed determined to undo their work with every passing moment.

I remembered the terrifying thrill of doing a hundred in Edward's shiny silver Volvo down this very highway. At the time I had nearly screamed at him out of shock, but now it seemed a fond memory of teenagers doing crazy teenager things. Well… one teenager and something else entirely in the driver's seat.

My mind began to wander, tracing through every moment I could recall, searching for something that should have tipped me off to any sort of insincerity I could have caught him in. My chest ached with a gasping sort of emptiness. Every blip, every moment, he had me caught like one of Charlie's many fish.

Was I like a fish, puckering toward him while he lured me, smiling in satisfaction of victory? If that were the case, why didn't he just kill me instead of running? To save himself the trouble of a coverup? Or was he really committing a noble self sacrifice? But if that were the case, why couldn't he understand he was punishing me too?

My mind whirled in new confusion. He'd warned me to stay away, but I had been stubborn. Or maybe stupid? If I had been his idea of a game, I'd played right into his hands. A new kind of pain shouldered its way into my suddenly overcrowded chest- betrayal.

I don't remember pulling to the side of the road, only that my vision had blurred to the point that road and snowy bank had melded into one. I stopped the truck and threw the flashers on.

No one was around to see me cry. I hollered my fury and pain at the dashboard like I'd never properly felt emotion before. It was a release that I'd been denying myself for months. Charlie knew I'd been damaged, a bit of shine had dulled somewhere inside of me, he'd even woke me for nights on end from the same nightmare time and time again, but I'd never given him the satisfaction of hearing me cry. Somehow, I felt that would make it real.

Maybe this right now was the nightmare, and the nightmare was my reality? Maybe Edward would come back to me, after the tracker turned me? We could be together again that way. I would no longer be fragile and alone. Or was just losing my mind?

I hung my head down, my hands clutched to the steering wheel like a life preserver, afraid if I lost that grip, my whole grip on reality would go with it. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the hot tears drip down my cheeks, when my driver side window exploded.


	4. Chapter 4

_Wake up, Bella._

The world rang like feedback in my ears. Was I deaf? But if I was deaf, how could I hear that voice? That voice… was so familiar. It seemed important to remember where I'd heard it before. So immensely important… but my brain was in pieces, scrambled to all corners of my skull.

It was still light out- sunlight shone red through my closed eyelids. My body was strewn across the center console of my truck. My breathing came in a shallow hitch, like an iron band was wrapped around my chest, while I tried to put the pieces of my mind back together.

 _Wake up,_ the voice said again.

I pressed my eyes together hard and blearily opened them. I was staring down into the cupholders, the cab of the truck dim. Muted sunlight filtered through the windows of the cab. It took me a moment to realize snow had covered my windshield and passenger window. I stared at it in confusion. I thought I'd cleaned my truck off. Had I even left the driveway?

 _Don't move. Don't look._

My scrambled brains finally realigned enough to recognize his voice. I ignored his commands and raised my head to him.

Edward sat beside me, an amused smile flitting around his lips. His marble skin shone more brightly than the sun and snow outside our small world in the cab. His tousled bronze hair gleamed. I opened my mouth, not sure if I would speak or simply cry, but lost my chance as quickly as it had come.

A gloved hand wiped the snow from the passenger window. I blinked at the bright sun streaming through the glass, and Edward had gone. I could hear shouting outside, four or five urgent voices hurling commands at one another. The cab door opened in a swirl of wind and snow. A round, unfamiliar man in an orange parka stood silhouetted in the doorframe.

The voices sounded more urgent than ever, muffled beneath the shrill ringing in my ears. But didn't they know Edward was there? He'd keep me safe. That's all that mattered. He came back to keep me safe.

Somebody grabbed my arms and began tugging my body from the cab of the truck. My hips protested against the seatbelt still clasped around them. They pulled and twisted my body from the truck, passing me down a line of arms as white hot fire erupted down my side. A shriek tore from my throat, his voice was whispering in my ear again. _Wake up, Bella!_ But the world swam to darkness once more.

My alarm was beeping. I reached blindly in the darkness to silence it, my eyes still closed. I had dreamed of him again. But this time, he had saved me at last. I could still see his playful lips, his eyes smiling at mine. The tracker had not won. Edward had come back. He'd pulled me away. He'd saved me. It had to mean something. I had to get back, to get back into that dream, to see his smiling eyes once more.

The beeping persisted while my impatient hand waved back and forth, frantically seeking out my clock to press the snooze. I lost my patience and rolled my head toward the beeping, eyes open, but my clock was nowhere to be seen; the source of the sound was the heart monitor at my bedside. I squinted at it in confusion and took in the scene around me.

Once again, I found myself in a hospital bed, wrapped beneath an unremarkable white knitted blanket, dressed in a gown dotted with a diamond pattern print in cornflower blue. The last rays of the day's sun filtered through hanging plastic blinds, illuminating a painfully mundane still portrait of flowers in a vase. The air was stale, medicinal- and Edward was sitting across the room, pretending to doze in the visitor's chair, just as he had the last time I'd spent an evening in a hospital bed.

My body convulsed into a sitting position before I realized no one had put out the small fire still blazing on my ribs.

"Aghh!" I hissed, clenching my eyes shut, still trying to force myself up.

"Whoa, Bella! Hang on!" he said. Warm hands pressed on my shoulders, trying to force me back down into bed. The pain of moving so quickly, combined with the pain of fighting for my own right to sit vertically, forced me to concede defeat. I relented and lay back, opening my eyes. Two things made sense to me immediately- one, why his hands were warm. Two, why he didn't simply force me back into bed with his incalculable strength and pin me there until he was satisfied I was under control- it wasn't Edward.

"Guess it's good you have some strength," said Jacob, smiling thoughtfully, then added, "But you should probably ask for some help next time. At least for a few weeks."

My shock and disappointment clearly read on my face, I was sure of it. Wild eyes searched and scanned, but my only visitor was Jacob, who had clearly just been startled out of his nap. At least both of us were disappointed, I supposed.

Silence spread between us as it was so apt to do between Charlie and I, but Jacob settled himself back into his chair as though nothing suited him better than to watch me gain my bearings. I swallowed the burning lump in my throat that threatened to bring me to tears.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Car crash," he said, then explained, "Hit and run, we think. Maybe someone lost control?" He tried to look innocent, but I could tell he was fishing for an explanation on why my truck was on the side of the highway at the time of impact. My first thought was the snow on my windshield when I woke up.

"I pulled over for the storm," I said automatically. When his brow furrowed in thoughtful confusion, I could tell I hadn't thought my excuse out properly. My scrambled brains pounded in my head, but I forced them into overdrive. I refused to admit to anyone that I had stopped to cry for Edward. Edward, who had been gone for months without any communication, no word on whether he might return or leave me to rot in dreary Forks forever. The swollen lump in my throat threatened to return, but I forced it down again and kept talking, my mouth dry.

"The roads were bad from the snow last night already. I saw some clouds in the distance that looked like they might start acting up. I thought a storm might roll in, so I pulled over to decide whether to wait it out or turn back."

My excuse was flimsy at best, but Jacob seemed to accept it.

"It did snow a little, but nothing your truck couldn't have powered through. Better safe than sorry, but I guess in this case…" he gave me an amused look, "Hard to be safe when you're the most accident-prone person in a 40 mile radius."

He chuckled in a way that made me think he might tousle my hair, were he not sitting across the room. I smiled to humor him and asked,

"Where's Charlie? And your dad?"

"Dad had the truck towed to the reservation. Guess he's enlisting me to fix it up after the wreck," he chuckled, "And I told Charlie to go home and get some rest- told him I'm young and spritely and can handle a late night. He's been a mess since we found you, saying how he never should have bought you that truck. At this rate, I don't think you'll even be able to go to the bathroom without him breathing down your neck."

Jacob's boyish laugh rang again. It felt in stark comparison to my own shattered will. Suddenly my eyes seemed too wet. I blinked quickly to clear them, but it failed to escape Jacob's sharp eyes, who misinterpreted them to be a sign of woeful sadness at an overprotective father.

"It's not so bad, Bella," he said in a serious tone, "In reality, that old truck probably saved your life. Like my dad says, they don't build 'em like that anymore. I'll talk to Charlie and see if he'll loosen the leash a little."

Jacob stayed the night just as he'd promised Charlie, but whether or not it was doing me a favor I would have disputed. If I had thought his laugh was loud, it was nothing compared to his snores. I spent the night and most of early morning flipping from station to station on the television, bouncing between painfully bland cooking shows and every variant of reality "wars" you could think up in a desperate boardroom, all the while cranking the volume in a futile attempt to either drown out the rumbling bear in the corner, or wake him for a moment of peace.

Altogether my injuries from the crash included a fractured ulna, one broken rib, several other bruised ribs, and a bruised collarbone. My seatbelt had most likely stopped me from flopping around the car like a dead fish, probably saving me from much more serious injuries.

Charlie took me home in the cruiser the following day. He tried to make small talk, mentioning that he'd rather take me to school himself during the winter anyway, and that they wouldn't miss him at the station for an extra hour or so, if it meant he could make sure I got there safely. I must have grunted my responses at all the proper times, because he kept up that way the whole ride home.

I paused in the cruiser when we pulled up the drive, gazing at the empty spot my truck usually occupied. I had never realized the degree of importance it held to me. It was my freedom, my sense of independence. And most of all, it was my final shrine to Edward. He had ridden in that cab with me, berated me about the safety of it, just as Charlie was doing to himself now. We'd driven it on that special day when he first showed me the meadow, when he showed himself as he really was. It was my totem to him. The last shred of physical reality that screamed "it was real!" and now it was gone.

"Cheer up, Bells," said Charlie, switching off the cruiser's engine, "Jacob will get the truck fixed up and you'll have it back by summer." He smiled at me, but his face wore a look that said this was against his better judgement. I gave him a half smile to soothe him, blinked slowly, and turned to stare again at the empty spot in the drive that, until very recently, used to house a piece of my heart.


End file.
